6th April 2011
Tops marks for Hospital’s Downs screening service
Broomfield Hospital’s Downs syndrome screening service is performing above the national standard, according to the latest assessment from the UK national screening committee and the NHS fetal anomaly screen programme.
The trust’s pathology laboratory analyses all of the Downs screens that are taken from pregnant women at hospitals across Essex. A small team works on the Down’s screening, which is overseen by Louise Tilbrook – Principal Clinical Scientist, Louise said:” We started offering first trimester Downs screening for our own hospitals in 2007 and have been running the service on behalf of all Essex trusts for the past two years. We analyse about 18000 tests per year and have a detection rates of 85%, which is well above the national standard of 75%.”
Down’s screening is offered to all pregnant women in their first trimester and consists of an ultrasound scan and a blood test. It is the blood test that is analysed in the laboratories at Broomfield Hospital. The samples are run on a special machine called an analyser which can process between up to 100 tests at one time. It then generates reports which indicate the test results. 97% of the tests have to be turned around within three working days, which the trust always meets.
The trust’s screening service is also performing well when it comes to the standardised screen positive rate. Louise explains: “The screen positive rate is the percentage of women in the reporting period who have been recalled and offered a diagnostic procedure. The national standard is a standardised screen positive rate of 3% or below, and we have a rate of 2.2% which is good, because it is important that the screening service is accurate. It is important that women are not recalled unnecessarily as it can present them with a difficult dilemma as to whether they want to have a diagnostic procedure to confirm or rule out the presence of Down’s syndrome in their baby.”
The trust provides the NHS screening programme for fetal anomaly with data twice each year for external evaluation by the Down’s syndrome screening quality assurance support service.
ENDS
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